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Sunday, April 18, 2010

At the beginning of history everything was made by hand. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century that machinery entered the workplace.

Though machinery can mass produce at low cost, it can never replace the beauty and workmanship of something created by hand. Or give you the sheer enjoyment of seeing something evolve into a thing of beauty made by your own hand.

Throughout history there have always been home crafters. Sometimes it was done from necessity during economic downtimes, just as a pastime or as with a lot of women to help supplement the household income.

The 1980's and 90's saw an explosion of craft shows, home boutiques, and stores that rented you a space to sell your handmades. In the late 90's crafting started to invade the internet. Today there are thousands of websites selling handmade. We have websites like Etsy.com and Artfire.com dedicated to promoting handmade and today's crafter.

The recent downturn in our economy with massive job losses has brought a new wave of crafters to the internet searching for a way to make a living for their families without being at the mercy of large corporations.

This blog is dedicated to the promotion of handmade and the crafters who are trying to add to the family support by the work and expression of their hands.

The industrial revolution may have departed this country for the most part but handmade is alive and well. Do you have a special talent learned at the hand of a parent or grandparent?

Keep handmade alive and teach it to the next generation. No matter how high tech this world becomes there will always be that driving force in a person to create by their own hand.

2 comments:

I enjoyed this post too. When i was really little, my grandmother would let me craft with her, simple things like refrigerator magnets, but they were my own and this made a love for crafting grow in me. My mom is very crafty also, and started teaching me to sew when i was in my early teens, got my own sewing machine when i was 16 and started making skirts from my old jeans like in your above post! Ive been into primitives about 5-6 years now, Love it!